itself was a tidy cluster of metal-roofed houses,
its most prominent feature a primary school of
neat green-and-white buildings. Perhaps a
hundred youngsters in uniforms romped at
recess in the yard, as I talked with Philemon
Balekile, a 26-year-old Tswana tribesman
from Palapye, back east. He sounded glum.
"From the time of their arrival the people
here have been taken from their culture," he
said. "They dress, eat, even have their houses
placed in the modern way- and none of it the
Bushman's way."
Philemon pointed to two empty cisterns.
"The water from the borehole causes diar
rhea," he said. "So we have those tanks. A
truck must come from Ghanzi to fill them. It
last came two weeks ago." I asked about the
health of the villagers. "Most of them have
TB," he said. "A doctor comes every two or
three months."
Diet? "The government
trucks in food once a month-maize meal,
beans, cooking oil." So what can they grow
here for themselves? His eyes swept the burn
ing sand. "Absolutely nothing," he replied.
NationalGeographic, December 1990